What’s It About
Living off the grid while vacationing at a winter resort, married spies Joe and Lara come under fire from members of the old guard who suspect they’ve joined an elite team of rogue spies.
MOVIESinMO REVIEW
“Alarum” centers on a group of rogue spies who’ve got this big idea about making global espionage better, which has seriously ticked off the U.S. government. The main story follows married spies Joe (Scott Eastwood) and Lara (Willa Fitzgerald), who claim they’re just trying to enjoy a romantic getaway at a winter resort. But the CIA isn’t buying it, so they send in their “fixer” Chester (Sylvester Stallone) to snoop around and figure out if the couple has joined Alarum. If they have? Well, Chester’s got permission to make them disappear permanently. The movie kicks off with quite a scene in Prague, where we meet Joe during what should’ve been a routine mission. Instead, he gets shot at by a sniper, has to take down one assassin, and ends up in a fight that sends him and another agent tumbling off a building onto a car below. Plot twist – that other agent is Laura, and instead of finishing their fight, Joe asks her out on a date. Fast forward five years, and these two lovebirds are married and supposedly vacationing in Poland. Though anyone paying attention will notice it looks exactly like some random American small town, complete with English signs everywhere – not exactly top-notch attention to detail. Things get weird when Joe’s taking a casual nature walk with other resort guests, and suddenly, a plane crashes nearby. But this is no ordinary accident – both pilots were shot dead before the crash. Joe, displaying some questionable but plot-convenient intuition, decides one of the pilots must have swallowed something important before dying. He’s right (of course) and ends up gutting one of the dead pilots right there in front of everyone. The really strange part? The other guests barely seem bothered by this impromptu autopsy. From there, the movie spirals into a mess of people trying to kill Joe and Laura. There’s Orlin (Mike Coulter), who took out those pilots and works for some mysterious rival organization. Then there’s Joe’s former boss, Burbidge (D.W. Moffett), who spends most of his screen time sitting in what looks like an abandoned warehouse office, seeming just as confused about the plot as the audience. He calls in Chester, played by Stallone, who basically shows up to remind everyone why he’s still fun to watch on screen. Speaking of performances, Stallone seems to be having a good time playing the been-there-done-that tough guy role. He’s reached that point in his career where he can poke fun at his own image, and his scenes with Eastwood actually bring some much-needed humor to the film. But it’s Willa Fitzgerald who really shines as Laura. She brings this fierce energy to the role that makes Laura feel like a real person rather than just another action movie wife who needs saving. The movie tries to juggle several subplots that never really come together. There’s Roland (Joel Cohen), who Laura’s supposed to protect but then just vanishes from the story. A random hostage situation involving a tour guide who somehow survives a massive shootout, even though, at one point, he actually appeared to be standing right in the middle of it. The script keeps dropping in these plot points but never really bothers to resolve any of them. Particularly bad is the action scenes. The special effects look like they were done on a budget from ten years ago, with digital muzzle flashes and blood splatter that don’t quite match up with what’s happening on screen. In one especially noticeable scene, someone launches grenades at a hotel, but instead of actual explosions, it looks like they just installed some red lights inside the building and called it a day. What’s really puzzling is that this movie was directed by Michael Polish, who used to make these really interesting independent films. Watching “Alarum” feels like watching someone’s first attempt at filmmaking, not the work of an established director. The dialogue tries to sound cool and edgy but comes across as flat and uninteresting, and the violence switches awkwardly between being unnecessarily brutal and unintentionally comical. While it’s true that Stallone has appeared in some pretty bad movies over his career (like “Oscar” or “Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot”), at least those films left an impression. “Alarum” manages to be both badly made and completely forgettable, which might actually be worse. It’s the kind of movie that makes you wonder how it got made in the first place and, more importantly, why anyone thought this was the best version of whatever story they were trying to tell.
OUR RATING – A CAREER ENDING 2